Mobile phones have become a preferred solution to ensure that a user can be reached regardless of his current location. In order to successfully establish a communication connection with the user of the mobile phone, it is, however, mandatory that the user will be alerted when a call comes in. In general a ring tone will inform the user accordingly. Also vibrating systems have been introduced to indicate an incoming call.
These known solutions, however, require that the user is either close enough to the mobile phone to feel the vibration and/or is able to hear the ring tone. Especially the latter requirement is often not fulfilled. If the user is for example listening to music or watching TV, the volume of the media output to him may be turned up to high and may not allow the user to hear the ring tone. Also in the event where the user is wearing a head set or earphones to listen to the media, he will not be aware of an incoming call, as he will not hear the ring tone.
In order to address this problem, enhanced acoustic devices have been suggested, wherein a control system is implemented to stop the rendering of music or other audio, when an incoming phone call reaches a mobile phone. Such an enhanced acoustic device is for example described in JP 2001 10 31 35 A. One disadvantage of this solution is that the usages of other devices, which the user may already own and which are not provided with the control system, will still bear the risk of missing a call.
JP 11154994A describes a notification device which can be attached to a rendering device to notify a user, who is listening to content being rendered from the rendering device via wired head phones, of an incoming call on his mobile phone. The notification device will either interrupt or mix the rendered signal with a notification signal informing the user about the call. One drawback of this solution is that the user will have to take his head phones off in order to be able to answer the incoming call.
Furthermore, headsets for mobile phones are known which include a microphone. These headsets may communicate with the mobile phone and any other device via a personal area network and may in particular set up a Bluetooth connection to the respective device. These solutions have two major drawbacks. Firstly, the headsets intended to be used for mobile phones generally have a lower quality of sound output. Secondly, these headsets not only require the mobile phone but also any other device which is to be used with the headsets to be Bluetooth enabled. Finally, the communication between the headset and the mobile phone will only be possible, if the headset is paired with the mobile device. The active or paired headset will, however, consume a considerable amount of power.
The problem to be solved by the present invention is thus to overcome these drawbacks of the prior art solutions and in particular to provide a solution for easy communication management with legacy headsets and legacy music and video players.